In the Mutant Mod tradition, The Tactician's Crest edition aims to bring a gaming experience with a deeper tactical aspect. Battlefields are now dictated by commanders actions, that's you. Tactical decisions over weigh the unit quality. This mod is for the hardcore minded, not for the easy-route takers. It is a challenging mod, but it is not a mod aimed at bringing the player down at all costs. As far as the AI is concerned, you are just another clan. But your clan needs a sharp minded ruler. Step up.

Prelude to Tactician's Crest

Every mod has a niche to it. Yet, some changes made to the vanilla are so fundamentally appeasing to the common sense, they surface up in any mod. The Tactician's Crest edition of Mutant Mod builds up on certain ideas well ingrained in big overhaul mods for Shogun 2 by now. These are namely

Although some of these changes may feel 'natural' once established, credit is nevertheless due to the first innovator who saw the need or implemented them. Feedback from the users on relevant mod pages are the secret muses behind the scenes as well. Almost certainly incomplete, I would like to credit the individuals involved in the mods below for aspiration

Darth Vader of Darth Mod
The Hedge Knight of UAI
General Malaise of Zen Mod
T.C. & Mitch of Script-o-Rama

At the Core of The Tactician's Crest

The paradigm at the heart of medieval warfare is the struggle to balance control vs chaos, quality vs quantity, resilience vs explosiveness, boldness vs caution, and the list goes on. Tactician's Crest tries to generate a battlefield experience where tactical decisions will reign supreme. And the whole game experience is tailored towards that end, which requires a large overhaul of almost all aspects of the game, including the AI.

Key Changes that You Should be Aware

A long list of changes to the vanilla is due, but not at the moment. I have my reasons for it and in time perhaps others will see that as well. For now, I present the mod to you for your evaluation. I guarantee a different feeling to the game from the beginning. You may like it or not like it, but you should be aware of these key changes

Units have special roles in the battlefield. Spears are resilient battle line holders. Swords carve their path. Cavalry are true masters of shock and awe. Archers are excellent skirmishers.

Flanking and rear attacking maneuvers are effective.

Economy feels smooth at the beginning, gets harder to manage towards the end.

Income is random to a degree, for both you and the AI, simulating the agriculture dependent economies rises and falls with farming output levels.

Seas are important and the struggle over control of the waters is constant

Major clans are dominant and they care for economic build-up

Naginata units are now heavy spear units

The list will go on later.

The suggested difficulty is Hard, suggested unit size is Large.

This Guy is Strange

Here is the unusual part for this mod. I am asking the fellow player a favor in return of my efforts. The favor is simply copy/paste the part below and modify it slightly in one of your posts. This is most likely the simplest feedback mechanism, but also very useful in evaluation.

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Give a number from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning 'Not at all', 2 meaning 'I disagree', 3 meaning 'Neither agree nor disagree', 4 meaning 'I agree' and 5 meaning 'I strongly agree' for the items below. Fill any you want, or add any items that you think is missing.

The overall mod experience is pleasant -
The battles are tougher than other mods -
Tactical game play is better -
The units feel specialized -
Units feel balanced -
I like how archers play out -
I like how battle lines hold -
The AI is good on the overall -
Fight over trade is fierce -
AI unit recruitment is good -
AI seems to build nicely -
Diplomacy is sensible -
Income too low -